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Hey, Reader!

Healing is terrifying.

There are lots of definitions of healing out there, but the one I always come back to comes from a mantra I learned from Ren Zatopek:

“Whole, hale, holy.”

These three words don’t simply sound nice together. They all share a linguistic origin, which they also share with the words ‘health’ and ‘healing’. These words come from an Old English word that meant “wholeness, a being whole, wound or well”, which itself came from a Proto-Indo-Eurpoean root word with the meaning “whole, uninjured, of good omen”.

Healing is a process of becoming whole, hale, and holy.
When you’ve spent all or most of your life feeling fractured, broken, wrong, and damaged…
When you’ve spent all or most of your life being told you are wrong, sinful, and monstrous…
When you’ve spend all or most of your life feeling like you had to maintain that for safety…
Letting yourself be whole, hale, holy...well, it’s fucking terrifying.

I’m not simply speculating when I say that. When I announced my new name at the end of May, I became myself, simply myself – whole, hale, and holy – in a way that I had never tried, been allowed to be, or even could have imagined before.

And it felt so good. It felt AMAZING to get to just BE myself. I was (I am) a whole new person and at the same time that person is ME, exactly myself. As time passed though, that sense of euphoria, elation, and joy at the expansion and embodiment I had created for myself morphed into fear and anxiety. My dysphoria reached new visceral heights that I had never experienced before, even at the same time as I was experiencing the most gender euphoria I have ever experienced. I was confused. I wondered if I made a mistake.

The thing that kept me from scuttling backwards, the thing that kept me looking forward and maintaining this course of self-definition, self-expression, and authenticity was my ancestors, particularly my queer ancestors. When I felt like it was too dangerous and risky, when I wanted to shrink back or change course, checking-in with my ancestors brought a flood of reassurance, love, and strength to keep going.

And the longer I sat with it, the more tentative steps forward I took, the more I realized that the reason it felt SO BAD wasn’t that it was bad, or risky, or dangerous. It wasn’t that this moment was a crucible. Instead, I was being invited – for maybe the first time ever – to step out of the crucible. I was being offered the opportunity to be me without shrinking away from it or making myself smaller or holding back.

I’m not a “new” me. I’m just me. And I get to be that me without surrendering anything. I get to be whole. I get to be full of myself. The more I settle into my “new” me, the more I see that the “old” me is still there, just like the “new” me was always there within me, waiting to released. I have never been broken. I have always been whole. And now all I have to do is claim it.

And that IS terrifying. In a world structured by systems of oppression that do their best to keep us small, choosing to claim one’s wholeness is terrifying. But my ancestors know just how radical this act of healing is. My ancestors know that my healing is their healing is our healing. And it is their support, reassurance, courage, and encouragement that I have to thank for bringing me this far and for keeping me going even when it felt absolutely terror inducing. This is the kind of magic and healing that becomes possible through radical ancestor work.

If you would like to build connection with your queer ancestors and find a gay-as-fuck reservoir of queer joy, liberation & healing make sure to register for the FREE Honoring Our Queer Ancestors workshop happening TODAY at 3pm ET. Register here!​

Honor your queer ancestors this Pride!

Pride month is for honoring who we are. It’s also for honoring the legacies that have made that pride possible. That’s where ancestor work comes in!

TODAY at 3pm ET, I am going to be sharing all about the queer ancestors in a FREE workshop!

Honoring Our Queer Ancestors is a workshop for helping you connect with your queer ancestors & discover a reservoir of queer joy, hope, strength, magic and liberation!

In the workshop, you’ll learn:

• Who the queer ancestors are
• How our queer ancestors are a reservoir of queer hope, healing, magic, strength, and vision for a better future
• How to connect with your queer ancestors, honor them, celebrate with them, heal with them, and learn from them

14 June 2024 at 3pm ET. A recording will be sent to all registrants.

​Register for the FREE workshop!​

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In Case You Missed It:

• I'm gonna be giving a talk on Queer Animistic Spirituality & the Natural World as Queer Ancestor at Salem Witch Fest in August! You can learn more about the conference here or register for online attendance at my talk here!
• From Instagram:
  • ​Mother Nature said Happy Pride! Mother Nature is a queer ancestor!​
  • ​Only getting gayer!​
  • ​PRIDE MONTH MEMES FOR MERCURY!​
• From Threads:
  • ​What if it was ok to CHOOSE to be queer?​

This Week's Joys & Gratitudes

• Friends and collaborators and collaborators who are friends! Last week's new moon and the general astrology of this moment has been ROUGH and my friends have come through for me with the sweetest support and it has meant so much. And also that I have been able to offer them support??? AMAZING. Friendship is just so beautiful, y'all! I've also been working on the COOLEST collaboration right now and I'm SO EXCITED about it! (Can't wait to share it with y'all!!!!)
• I went to Pride over the weekend. While I was there I said to a friend that I never know what to expect from Pride and always leave feeling like I didn't get what I needed. But this time I found what I needed when I ran a few errands afterwards in the gay-as-fuck outfit I wore to Pride (which involved sequins, bright purple mesh and a shirt that read "homosexual tendencies") and absolutely scandalized the cashier at the bougie health food store! 🤣🌈😇✨
• Feeling very grateful to my queer ancestors for the ways they've held me and helped me in the process of finding my new name, claiming it, "coming out" in this way...it's been so much, much more than I ever thought I could hold and they've helped me so much in learning how to hold it and how to be this person that I want to be and that I am.

What's bringing you joy this week? Where are you finding magic? Feel free to hit reply and let me know!

Until next time!

In Joy, Magic, and Solidarity,
Lex

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P.S. Know someone who would find magic in this newsletter? Please forward it on! Word of mouth is one way we weave connection & magic!

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